August 22, 2019

Building Community Through the Business of Design

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“A Collaborative Program Unpacks the Issues, Challenges and Opportunities in Vancouver’s Textile and Apparel Industry

The intersection between design, engineering, business and textiles is at the heart of an innovative program that combines business and design principles to teach students how to develop design-led, socially responsible ventures.

Run collaboratively between Emily Carr University’s Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship and Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology and Beedie School of Business, the Business of Design program brings an interdisciplinary group of students together with local experts in textiles, clothing and design to unpack some of the issues, challenges and opportunities in Vancouver’s textile and apparel industry.

ECU alum Emily Smith (MDes, 2018), co-founder of Vancouver MiniMaker Faire and founder of Vancouver’s Fibreshed, and Stephanie Ostler, founder and CEO of Devil May Wear, will mentor students from diverse specializations to help create and connect the next generation of leaders and innovators in the textile industry, and help foster an ecosystem of local opportunities, and environmentally-responsible ventures and products.

“What gets us excited is that Emily Carr’s ethos is ‘research by making,’ so this program feels like an extension of that research practice,” says Cemre Demiralp, Co-ordinator at Living Labs, which operates the Shumka Centre.

“It’s all about teaching students how working directly on the development of their ideas is a critical form of inquiry, and one that will actually make them more qualified as they transition into the professional world. It’s also about understanding how growing connections outside your specialization is a key way to turn doing what you love and believe in into a livelihood.””

Find the whole article on Emily Carr University News

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